Badly Placed Ads

EBay seems to spend a considerable amount on sponsored Google searches - and, from what I've seen, I suspect quite a bit of it a waste. Sometimes it's also unintentionally funny.

The other day I clicked on the words "chemical weapons" on a Fox News story and the top result in the "ads" section of the resulting page was this (click to enlarge):


Well, maybe eBay has decided that being an arms merchant is really where the money is.

(If you click on the ad, you see some games, some mace, and some information about weapons that's for sale. This week, anyway.)

The great thing about sponsoring search ads is that they are targeted. You can find people looking for very specific things. EBay doesn't seem to get this, using a big scattershot approach. Throw everything at the wall; something'll stick!

You find these ads when you do a Google search on almost anything that could be an object. Not sex toys, though; I guess those are too dangerous, unlike chemical weapons.

Google normally deactivates ads if they don't get enough response. I wonder if this rule applies to big spenders such as eBay, though. (And even if it doesn't, I expect most of the clicks on things like this are people wondering, "What the heck is that about?" - not likely sources of revenue.)